A. DALIBANDU Vs. THE STATE OF A.P.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant was the president of the Panchayat Samithi, Mandasa, having been elected thereto in June, 1964 He was, however, removed from that office by the Government acting under Sec. 34 of the Andhra Pradesh Panchayat Samithis and Zilla Parishads Act, on the ground that he had abused his position and the powers vested in him. He thereupon, filed W. P. No. 53 of 1967 in this Court, which was dismissed by our learned brother Chinnappa Reddy, J., on 15-7-1968. This Writ Appeal is directed against that order of dismissal.

(2.) It may be noted that the annexure to the show cause notice issued by the Government to the Appellant, contained as many as 22 allegations of irregularities, which in the opinion of the Government amounted to an abuse of his position and the power vested in him. The appellant submitted his explanation and the Government found that four out of the 22 allegations had been established. One of the contentions of the learned counsel for the appellant, is, that the learned single Judge has not noticed the explanation by the appellant to the charges levelled against him. This complaint is wholly unwarranted because we find that the learned Judge has clearly stated the explanation of the appellant to all the four charges, which were found by the Government as proved. Indeed, the learned Judge, having stated all the four charges and the appellant's explanation thereto observed that he was particularly impressed with the second allegation against the appellant which in his opinion, "discloses a wilfulness and obduracy which is compatible only with an abuse of position and powers." That charge is that the appellant had appointed a junior lower division Clerk as Loans Inspector, despite the fact that it had been brought to his notice repeatedly by the Block Development Officer, that the candidate was a junior that his work was not satisfactory, and that charges of temporary misappropriation of the sale proceeds of the nationalised text books were pending against him. The person appointed, latter embezzeled a large sum out of the loan amounts collected by him. The contention put forward before us is that mere pendency of charges shall not stand in the way of an employee being promoted. But, in this case, it is not merely the pendency of charges against the promoted employees. The Block Development Officer had pointedly brought to the notice of the appellant, that the employee was a junior that his work was not satisfactory and that his integrity was doubtful. Inspite of all this information placed before him, the appellant had promoted this particular candidate to the responsible post of Loans Inspector. This behaviour in our view, undoubtedly merits the observation made by the learned Judge.

(3.) The second argument is that the grounds alleged against the appellant are not sufficient to come to the conclusion that he had wilfully omitted or refused to carry out the orders of the Government or abused his position or the powers vested in him. It is not for the court exercising its jurisdiction under Art. 226 of the Constitution to examine whether the grounds stated were sufficient to enable the Government to come to an opinion. What all the Court is concerned with is, whether the grounds exist in fact or not and whether those grounds are relevant to the action taken. We have already stated that there were atleast four charges which were held to be proved against the appellant and which formed the basis of the order of removal. It is not possible to say that the Government had acted without any grounds or unreasonably, in removing the appellant, in the circumstances of the case.